Houston, we have a problem

Memo to Hong Kong's TV stations: Yes, I know you will want to pay tribute to the late Whitney Houston, and that's fine, but could you please not do so by subjecting us to the 4,378th rerun of The Bodyguard?  She did make other movies, you know - why not give Hong Kong people a chance to see them?

In sickness or in health

Sitting waiting to be served in the bank a couple of days ago, I was idling through Fortune Magazine's Special Issue Investment Guide 2012 when I came across this choice quote from Rajiv Jain:

High quality equities are the place to be - the Coca-Colas, the McDonald's, the BATs of the world.

(For those who don't know, BAT is British-American Tobacco.)

It's a sad commentary on the world that the companies makingh healthy profits in a sick economy are those dedicated to filling their customers with unhealthy crap.

Greenwash

No matter how many pictures of trees Chinachem may erect on their construction sites, the reality is they are covering another bit of Hong Kong with concrete. I know we need more housing, but let's not pretend that Hong Kong's future will be green unless we make some big changes.

Making it Better: Friends of the Earth (Hong Kong).

Underwater meditation

First of all "Kung Hei Fat Choi" and a happy year of the dragon to all my readers. Or perhaps I should say "Kung Si Fat Choi" in case a disgruntled mainland professor scolds me for not using Mandarin.

A heading on the South China Morning Post website today says "Old habits threaten giant mantra ray". Presumably the creature swims along the seabed chanting "Om mani padme hum" to itself.

But it's not only in Hong Kong that one finds such errors. The once-impeccable BBC News website has the heading "Murray though as opponent retires" today. I guess they are though with sub-editing.

Finally someone has reviewed this blog and "damned me with faint praise". While calling it "a very stereotypical HK blog by a male expat from the British Isle" (there's only one?), he does at least concede that my writing "is at least borderline literary". For these small mercies, thanks. Happy new year!

Stilton Blues

As most people know, Europe has "Protected Designation of Origin" laws designed to protect the names of distinctive local foods and drinks from being copied elsewhere. Champagne, for example, can only come from the Champagne region of France; and Newcastle Brown Ale could at one time only come from Newcastle, until its brewer applied in 2004 to cancel its protected status because they wanted to move the brewery across the river out of the city. (This is the same unlovely company, then called Scottish & Newcastle, that also closed its last brewery in Scotland, leading one writer to suggest that it should change its name to Ampersand, since that was the only valid part of the name left.)

Usually this system works well, though some names had already become so widely (ab)used that it was impossible to save them. Numerous inferior cheeses around the world bear the name Cheddar, for instance, though the finest examples of the style are still produced on farms around the Somerset village of that name.

Cheddar can at least still produce its local speciality, though not exclusively. Not so lucky is the Cambridgeshire village of Stilton, where the magnificent blue cheese of that name was first sold. The current landlord of the historic Bell Inn, where the cheese originally came to fame, commendably wants to sell locally produced blue cheese. Unfortunately for him, Stilton can by law only be produced in the three counties of Derbyshire, Leicestershire (where the Inn's owner in the early 1700s obtained his first supplies) or Nottinghamshire. So the Bell Inn can sell the product it is most famous for, but only under a different name. Crazy, huh?

Personally, as much as I love Stilton, I find Blue Wensleydale even more delicious, though often hard to find. That is, believe it or not, still made in Wensleydale.

Fleet Street and Sour

The Guardian newspaper in Britain is so notorious for its frequent typos that Private Eye long ago dubbed it The Grauniad. Just now I Googled "Matt Driscoll" (a British sports journalist) after reading about him in a BBC story. Driscoll challenged his harassment and sacking by Rupert Murdoch's now defunct News of the World newspaper after he fell ill, and won a court settlement of £792,736 - good for him!

But that's not the point of this story - what is, is the extract turned up by Google from the Guardian blog: "Matt Driscoll is now being taken [by Britain's Leveson inquiry into press ethics] through his 10 year stint at the NoW chronologically. He worked under sour editors - Phil Hall, then Rebekah Wade, ..." Well, it's hardly surprising they're sour after the revelations about the paper's shameful behaviour under some of them which led to its closure.

World's Worst Brand Names

What's your brand called? "Nipple Silly". Yeah, sure.

Even worse (sorry for the poor picture quality):


This is one of the packets of tissue they give away free when you buy a newspaper. They probably have to give it away - would you purchase from someone who tells you "Our brand is BS"?!

Google this

Try this: Google "Epson scanners" and see what comes up first.

Now if I type in "scanners", I don't mind Google taking money from HP to place theirs ahead of others. But when I specifically search for Epson, I don't want to see HP at the top of the list. In fact, Epson only comes 4th. True, Google identifies the first 3 entries as ads, but still...

It doesn't feel right to me. What do you think?